LIFE AND DEATH.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume II, Issue 58, 8 February 1868, Page 4

LIFE AND DEATH.

JLJ i A 0-1 -.A, i 1 -L/ BY H. GRAHAME, M.R.C.S. Fob three days I had gazed anxiously from my study-window at the closed Winds and unopened door of the gloomy, tomb-like, old brick house opposite. For three days I had watched for the old Doctor to issue forth from his den on that regular hurried twilight walk on the common, in which his fixed and vacant eyes, his nervously-working fingers, and muttered words, which he yet seemed jealously afraid of being overheard,] always attracted the wondering and awe-stricken attention of the passer-by. For the Doctor was regarded by the ignorant of the town in the light of a magician; and there were rumours current of his bringing the dead to life, and of awful and horrible things, at war with the nature which Providince had ordained. There were rumours, it is true; but it was known that, in the last six months, Doctor Weir had caused to be taken to his house no less than three paupers from the workhouse, pronounced past hope of recovery, and that these had died therein, and that notice of their deaths|had notbeen given until the bodies were in a state which rendered it absotely impossible to retain them longer unLaried. What could such strange proceedings signifv ? I, as a young medical practitioner, and in frequent consultation with the Doctor, knew that he was deeply interested in the practical study of the nature and effects of electricity and galvanism—in search of some more subtle element which he maintained to exist; also, that he had of late dropped obscure and eager hints of being on the verge of some wonderful discovery therewith connected. Closely allied to this element or principle, he said, was what we call life—that mysterious animal vitality binding together, as a link, body and soul, and the severing of which alone can separate the two. “It is not the soul,” he said, “ which deserts the body, hut the body, whose vitality failing, severs the link, and sets free the soul. If the nature of this could he discovered,” —and here as trange, eager look would come into his eyes, and his lips and his fingers would work convulsively and impatiently,—“and if, once discovered and understood, it could be preserved unbroken;” and then my own soul seemed to stir and thrill within me, as I meet his deep, earnest eyes, lighted up with the inspiration of his aimost sacrilegious conception. “Would you meddle with death? Would you interfere with tho laws of nature?” 1 ventured to inquire. A look of pitying contempt came into his face. 1

“It is the study, the discovering the laws of nature,” he replied. “ The mind was intended by its Maker to progress—to work its way through darkness and ignorance into light and knowledge, up to Him. Wonderful laws, marvellous principles, have been discovered—astronomy, gravitation, and electricity, with the wonders therewith connected. Galvanism, magnetism, mesmerism, clairvoyance—what are these but results and modifications of electricity ? And yet this principle, as we know it, is but the rude elementary form or beginning of that mighty and as yet unknown agency upon which all life depends—leading up by seperate linns, a grand chain, even to the Eternal, in which all life hath its source and its ending.” The old Doctor paused, as if getting beyond his proper depth or height, and resumed:—-

“ Life,” said he, “ never leaves the body uniil decay commences; never entirely leaves it until decay is complete, and the body is dust and ashes; and as long as the “ life,” lingers, so does the “soul,” Not at once is it set free; but slowly, gradually, the spirit is emancipated as its clay tennant resolves back to earth. Still the heart heats on, the blood circulates in that corpsiike body. Still the life and the spirit are there. Then the heart is still, the blood stagnates: vet the life and the soul are there. We look on the body, and call it death. Pshaw! it is but the boginning of decay, not death itself- We bury the body with the life and the spirit still lingering about it. Sometimes, as we know, an accident, a sudden shock, will revivify that seeming corpse—arouse the waning

flume into renewed life; or, after burial, the moisture, the warmth, the electric principle of Mother Earth will act upon and revivify it, as we have seen electricity reanimate a torpid, or, as it is called, a dead limb or nerve. Do you understand?” I was silent. My thoughts went back to many incidents which seemed to illustrate the truth of his remark. I remembered a corpse being brought to life, by the coffin being accidentaly dropped from the shoulder of one of the bearers ; and of another similar effect, produced by a flash of lightning striking a house in which lay 1 a dead body, killing a man and reanimationg a corpse, an incident well authenticated in the town where it occurred, and where I had at ihe time resided. And then, I reflected—“ Every one knows how frequently, upon graves being- opened, the bodies therein are found in unnatural positions, clearly showing a revival after a burial.” And with these thoughts, the old Doctor’s theory, though never more than obscurely hinted at, struck me with startling force. There might be something in it, after all! Yet, as days and weeks and months passed by, and the Doctor ceased to discuss the subject, though he appeared to become even more abstracted and eager, my faith and interest in his proceedings gradually waned. I became more occupied with my own individual practice, and thought of him, dispite his profound learning and shill, as an unfortunate victim to visionary ideas and delusions. Still, when it was necessary to hold a consultation with him on some dificult case or subject, no one was more clearheaded and clear-sighted than Doctor Weir. He was an old man, and had some years past resigned his regular practice; so that his time was now all his own, to dispose of as he pleased. And this he had of late passed almost entirely in his own house, rarely issuing therefrom, or amitting any one within. Thrice, within the last few months, as I have mentioned, he had taken from the workhouse infirmary a patient pronounced incurable, and whose lease of life was clearly near an end, and whose days were numbered. And yet, in the Doctor’s quiet house, under his “kind attention and skilful treatment,” as the local newspaper had it, these incurables had lingered on, past the time alloted by medical foresight’ and had, at times, even appeared to the few admitted to their presence (of whom I was one) to ieceive so strangely as to admit the possibility of a final recovery.

And so the fame of the Doctor’s skill went abroad ; though people could by no means account for the fact of the dead bodies, when these patients did die, having been kept in the house until they were literally in a state of decomposition. And then it was that strange stories began to creep abroad among the vulgar of these dead bodies having been seen walking', and having - been beard to utter horrible sounds in the stillness of the old house.

This report originated first with an ancient crone, the sister of Maria Jackson, the Doctor’s half-deaf and cross-g-rained old housekeeper. She had made her way into the house one night on a visit to her sister, who never admitted any one else—and seldom even her—and had found Maria asleep before the kitchen fire; while awayup-stairs, in the direction of “ the master’s ” private study and laboratory, were heard faint, appalling- sounds of shrieks and gasping laughter, which made the listener’s blood run cold within her. Yet, with woman’s natural curiosity, and taking- advantage of her kinswoman’s deep sleep, which she by-the-by, declared didn’t “seem natural,” she had made her way thither, guided by the sounds, and as she declared, upon looking through the keyhole, had seen a corpse stagger across the room! How she got down-stairs, and out of the house she didn’t remember.

Such was the story she told me, when, being called in by an alarmed neighbor, I found her in a trembling- nervous fit, the effect of the fright she had received. She declared, moreover, that as she stood there, gazing and listening at the keyhole, she had been conscious of a strange feeling, a thrilling throughout her frame a tightening and nervous excitement, as it were, of her whole body, which, to use her own expression, “ made her feel like a different person.” And, indeed, to my own perception, there was something strange and unaccountable in her symptoms. Though old and no sign of fever, her pulse beat full and rapidly ; her eyes were bright and clear, her complexion fresh; and nervous and trembling as she was, she yet manifested a strength and vigor which was wonderful, considering what a feeble and decrepit being she habitually was. These sympsoms lasted for two days, gradually diminishing, until even her strength seemed to decrease Her puse was scarcely perceptible, and I knew that she coud not live a day longer —not unless I could see the Doctor.

And so it was tor three days I had been watching the old physican’s closely shut abode; the isolated gloomy looking brick house, shut in by a high wall, and veiled by dark evergreen thickets. Yet no shutter was unclosed, no door opened and no smoke issued from the Doctor’s chimney, though a thin, ghost-like mist appeared from that of the kitchen, at quite the opposite end of the spacious house. The Doctor had not even come out for the regular evening walk, which in five years I had never known him to miss, unless in inclement weather. What could it mean ? Was he dead ?

Unable to get rid of the idea thus presented, on the third day of watching I took my hat and walked over to the gloomy house. It was just after dark, yet no light was visible from the windows I rang loudly at the front door; and at length it was slowly opened an inch or two, and the old women’s wizened face and grey eyes peered suspiciously

through. In the dim light of the lamp she carried she did not recognise me, until I spoke. “It is I, Mrs, Jackson Doctor Grahame. Wherere is the Doctor ? ” “ Oh, it’s you, is it, sir ? Why, the master, he’s where he generally is—up in his ’boritory.” “I want particularly to see him.” “ I’m afeard you can’t see him to-night sir.” She stood holding the half-closed door in her hand, and looking doubtful,and hesitating, now at me, and then over her shoulder into the dark, dingy hall beyond. (To be concluded in our next.)